CNBC is getting down to business

Commentary: Thomas-Graham exits as Fox threat looms

By

JonFriedman

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- On Monday, CNBC Chairman Pamela Thomas-Graham resigned to join Liz Claiborne as a group president.

At first blush, it seemed like a curious move. The cable business-news channel, remember, is a significant presence in the always-lively and high-profile media industry. Liz Claiborne
LIZ
on the other hand, designs and markets fashion apparel and accessories, including such brands as Bora Bora.

But considering Thomas-Graham's problematic reign at CNBC, I almost get the feeling that she would have preferred to be shipwrecked on Bora Bora than continue to run the troubled business-news channel.

This is a nervous time at CNBC. Its challenges are legion. The network's audience has been dwindling in recent years. It has yet to have any kind of an impact in prime time (does the name "McEnroe" ring any bells?). And, most ominous of all, the formidable Fox
FOX, +1.06%
juggernaut lurks in the shadows.

CNBC seemed to have questioned Thomas-Graham's ability to steer the company to its past glories. She became president and chief executive officer of CNBC in 2001, having the unfortunate timing to come aboard as the stock market was coming apart.

Earlier this year, she was named CNBC's chairman and passed the challenge of breathing life into CNBC on to veteran TV news executive Mark Hoffman.

Lack of excitement

In the past several years, CNBC's biggest problem has been what I perceive to be a noticeable absence of excitement in its broadcasts.

People I know tend to watch CNBC out of a sense of obligation -- like how you cracked open the books and did your homework for fear of being unprepared for a pop quiz in school.

How can CNBC expect me, watching at home, to work up enthusiasm for the broadcasts when its own anchors and reporters often seem to be going through the motions?

Yes, I respect the fact that CNBC focuses on presenting a steady stream of serious news. Like CNN, it has thrown its weight behind the doctrine of presenting breaking news at the expense of other kinds of programming.

And, in all fairness, maybe it's virtually impossible for the segment producers and on-air personalities to create a sense of urgency and hipness while the stock market so often bores people to tears -- Google notwithstanding.

Still, inexplicably, there is frequently a dearth of wit and humor on CNBC. Business news need not be dull. Compounding the problem, when CNBC's leading lights try to loosen up and engage one another in patter, their exchanges often sound stilted and forced.

Maybe CNBC's shows need a new format. Attempts to create a "SportsCenter"-like atmosphere appealed to the Wall Street trader crowd but it wore thin after a while.

Fox looms

But CNBC had better find a way to excite its audience -- and soon.

Nothing is official yet, and Fox officials have painstakingly recited all the reasons they can't confirm that Fox will definitely roll out a business channel at all.

But the betting is strong that the 800-pound gorilla of cable news will eventually get around to launching a business-news channel of its own to rival CNBC. A decade ago, Fox was the new kid on the block in cable news, looking way up at CNN, which seemed indomitable.

When Fox unveils its own cable network at some point and begins to challenge CNBC, it's likely that the newcomer will try to carve out a niche by catering to Main Street, not Wall Street. And if Fox does, no doubt it'll hear an outcry that it has dumbed down the serious business of investing (which CNBC itself has had to answer for since it made the hyperactive Jim Cramer a star).

Perhaps CNBC's brass secretly frets that it just can't win with America. In the late 1990s, when the stock market was soaring and breaking records at a seemingly daily clip, CNBC's anchors appropriately reflected the investment community's ebullience.

When the market headed south, investors savagely turned on CNBC and used the network as a convenient scapegoat. Do you remember hearing anyone complaining about CNBC's happy-news coverage during the stock market's thrilling rise?

Riding the wave

Today, Fox is riding the conservative wave in the U.S. and trouncing cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC (another GE-owned cable channel). By creating a chatty, viewer-friendly format -- disparaged by skeptics as talk radio on TV -- Fox has developed enviable loyalty from its audience.

Of course, Fox would have to swim in the same waters as CNBC, meaning it would have to find a way to build an audience at a time when investors (always the core group) are so turned off to equities that they dread checking up on the performance of their stocks.

It's sobering enough for CNBC to remember that Fox has already passed CNN in the widely followed cable news ratings. The pressure intensifies because Fox News chief Roger Ailes used to run CNBC during its salad days -- before media-critic pests started conjecturing as to why CNBC had lost its luster.

Ailes just might have some ideas about how to make TV business news seem exciting.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you like -- or dislike -- about CNBC?

WEDNESDAY PET PEEVE: If TV news people feel a need to engage in happy talk on the air, why can't it at least be interesting?

Please send your comments to JFriedman@MarketWatch.com. If you don't want me to publish your e-mail message or your name, kindly make it clear.

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